Whether you sell something as common as salt or work so closely with your clients that you become part of their team, people want to know they can trust you and your company. Social media empowers you to demonstrate your trustworthiness, authenticity, and approachability. How you interact with your followers on social media reflects how you interact with your customers.
But what if what you do is, well, boring? What opportunities to engage with your customers could social media possibly provide? With a dose of creativity and consistency, engaging a social media following can boost even the dullest of businesses.
You’re not as boring as you think you are.
Let’s talk TP for a moment. Yes, that TP. Few things are more mundane than a roll of toilet paper. It’s something we all need, but no one particularly wants to talk about. What could a toilet paper company possibly have to share on social media?
Check out Charmin’s Twitter feed. It turns out a whole lot. Charmin realized social media provides an opportunity to build relationships and establish a rapport with consumers. It uses Twitter to create a personality around its product, which humanizes (bear-inizes?) its brand and opens new lines of communication with consumers. More than 81,000 people have chosen to follow toilet paper on Twitter. Do you think those thousands of people—and their followers—contribute to Charmin’s revenue? You bet.
It’s not about you, anyway; it’s about them.
Companies with successful social media strategies very rarely—if ever—use their platforms to sell. Instead, they create conversations about brands, products, and services. They give their followers something to talk about and engage with them once the conversation’s rolling.
The easiest way to create a conversation on social media is to make it about your followers, not yourself or your company. What do your customers care most about? What are the challenges and obstacles that come up most often in conversations with them? Would engaging people on these topics build trust and rapport between your followers and your business?
15 minutes a day could help you make you thousands, potentially.
Social media is a tool, and just like any tool, it’s only productive if you use it. Carving out a few minutes of your day to post on Facebook and interact with your audience can pay dividends in relationship building. Start a conversation, then interact with followers’ responses to make them feel heard and appreciated.
Hooker and Company can help you share your story and erase your social media skepticism. Let’s give ‘em something to talk about, together.